Regulation of E-kinase mediated cell-adhesion molecule(s) function by E-NTPase(s): imminent regulatory inter-dependency for cell adhesion

Abstract

E-NTPase is a cell membrane bound enzyme, suggested to play a role in maintaining the [NTP] o and cell adhesion. Attempts to purify this enzyme resulted identification of many proteins co-purifying with E-NTPase. The amino acid sequence of chicken gizzard smooth muscle E-NTPase has been shown to have considerable amino acid sequence homology with mammalian CD39. On the other hand, the purified rat cardiac sarcolemmal E-NTPase showed identical sequence homology with platelet CD36. In this communication, an effort was made to provide rationale for the functional relevance of E-NTPase with reference to cell-adhesion process.